A Challenge Reborn

[NonaLaggia]

Heyy,
since this is a discussion forum in general, I wanted to ask people all over Eorzea including the hosts, SE, what you think of the simplifications of some jobs and roles, the game itself and the recent changes over the years of playing.

Talking about myself, I am visiting Eorzea from time to time, beginning with the beta of ARR. I have seen so many changes, and people before the calamity have seen even more of them. There were changes we liked and loved, but were there changes we totally disliked?

Talking about my opinion, Eorzea became more accessible for new travellers and that is great! We have more Warriors than ever before and the world takes you to a place, were you can play and listen to more than thousands of stories. We have fought for so many years against villains we loved and hated.
But I sometimes miss so badly the challenge in some things. As I told you, I played 2.0 and I loved so many challenging things about it. I know the cross-class changes are a good thing, in terms of the accessibility and the changes to skills and roles are awesome too, but isn't it sometimes too easy? Don't you wish sometimes an incredible feeling besides leveling, a milestone, you reached for yourself, some kind of thing that makes you feel like the greatest Eorzean in the world? The Ishgardian Rebuilding Project, gives you that kind of feeling, the raid-content (including UwU etc.) maybe too, but is there something else that makes you feel the challenge? I know there is the possibility of doing PotD and HoH solo, but is there more?

I don't just want to talk about my opinion here, I want to ask and invite everyone to join me here. I am not disliking the game, I am just worried that the game could be "too simple" or "too easy" and the challenge that we starve for when we play a game, the milestone we want to see, could vanish someday. Many games and many worlds tried to change for the better, but looking at Guild Wars, where people complain about "too easy raids and underwhelming content" (what we by the way will never have, because the story is more than overwhelming), and looking at WoW where people numbers decrease because of lacks from so many sides, I just fear that this could happen to us someday.
That is the reason why I want to talk to you, ask you about what you think.

Thank you for reading and I hope you can teach me better.

[NessaWyvern]

Hmm.... Honestly, after 6 or 7 years of playing, the average dungeon and trial does feel easier than ARR and HW did, but how much is that due to the game getting simpler, or does it only feel that way after many years playing, I actually got a little gud?

I still find ex quite challenging, and I am still too nervous to do much savage, so personally I still think the game is hard enough. And when it’s not, maybe I’ll finally pluck up courage and give savage a shot.

As for classes getting simplified, maybe it’s a good thing, this is the first expansion that I am actually trying to get everything to max level. I will say that healers at least (since that is what I played) are more complex now than in ARR at least. Maybe not more than HW or SB, though. Oof, it’s been too long to remember what the classes were like, tbh.

[Liam_Harper]

I don't just want to talk about my opinion here, I want to ask and invite everyone to join me here. I am not disliking the game, I am just worried that the game could be "too simple" or "too easy" and the challenge that we starve for when we play a game, the milestone we want to see, could vanish someday.

I've brought this up before too and learned that most players don't seem to have milestones or actually want to be challenged. The general consensus has been that players just want to relax after a long day at work or such and that accomplishments, prestige or achieving anything special are generally looked down upon as wanting to "show off" or exclude others.

It's a little sad, since having things to accomplish and goals to strive for is what keeps gaming interesting for me personally, but it is what it is and I've come to accept it. If others are happy it's not fair to demand the game caters to my preferences.

[Sabrenn]

I agree, I've gotten a lot better at some jobs that I was horrible at or avoided altogether and that feeling I had of admiration towards the players who mastered it before has gone because I don't see the difficulty in mastering those jobs anymore.
The jobs that I thought were insanely cool because they were hard to master are now easy to pick up.

I don't mind having some easier jobs in each role for people who aren't looking for a challenge but you can't just make everything easy because the people who aren't good at them aren't! I wanted to work on getting good at them!

For example: I used to think sch players were incredibly skilled and always looked up to them, but I've played scholar last tier as a main and it was.. easy? That was kinda disappointing.

And before people tell me astrologian has challenging gameplay, I used to main it in hw/sb and it certainly does not anymore. I also hate the removal of royal road and time spells.

I also used to love the cross class system, I know people had set ones you "had" to bring into raids and stuff but it made you have to go and try other jobs to get skill and see if other jobs are better suited to you. And it was fun to put random skills on classes to see what worked. It gave meaning to us being able to level every job.

[NanaWiloh]

I've brought this up before too and learned that most players don't seem to have milestones or actually want to be challenged. The general consensus has been that players just want to relax after a long day at work or such and that accomplishments, prestige or achieving anything special are generally looked down upon as wanting to "show off" or exclude others.

It's a little sad, since having things to accomplish and goals to strive for is what keeps gaming interesting for me personally, but it is what it is and I've come to accept it. If others are happy it's not fair to demand the game caters to my preferences.

Hit the nail on the head with your last statement. Everyone has different goals not everyone gets accomplishment out of completing challenging content. But that does not mean that challenging content should be removed. This is FF14 not a game like EQ p99 where simple leveling is a grind fest and most of the time requires a group. Stepping out side a city in P99 is like stepping out of the first major town in xenoblade 2, dont have to go far to find something that will one shot you.

[Kacho_Nacho]

I've brought this up before too and learned that most players don't seem to have milestones or actually want to be challenged. The general consensus has been that players just want to relax after a long day at work or such and that accomplishments, prestige or achieving anything special are generally looked down upon as wanting to "show off" or exclude others.

It's a little sad, since having things to accomplish and goals to strive for is what keeps gaming interesting for me personally, but it is what it is and I've come to accept it. If others are happy it's not fair to demand the game caters to my preferences.

Different players want different things sometimes they even change their minds.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't voice what you want. It just means you should look for players who share the same wants as you.

[Niyuka]

The thing is, especially when listening to these forums, the most important player is the casual. He doesnt know the meta, often uses half or less of his skills, uses dungeon drops and a mixture of random white loot bought off the MB, doesnt talk or chat except in voicechat to his equally casual friends, and is generally unable to read patch notes, watch youtube videos or any guides, and doesnt like to die or fail at anything, otherwise they will quickly drop their subscription.
This playerbase, however, absolutes hates (and will drop sub) when there are parts of the game inaccessible to that playstyle, especially if they contain rewards like Mounts, skins or better statted items.
So, adding things like more challenging content with appropriate rewards supposedly leads to this mass exodus of silent casual players, who cannot be asked to learn or do anything, but are always perfectly up to date on what is NOT made for them.
I am a savage raider, play 2 times a week. This makes me insanely hardcore, supposedly. I dont mind 85% of the game catering to casuals, heck, I enjoy the storyline, some PvP, the gold saucer and the occasional dungeon myself.
But it seems that if the game would actually cater 15% of its content towards the 15-20% of the playerbase that completes more challenging content than normal mode raids, for some reason, that angers the casual players sooooooo much they will all run away, taking their money elsewhere.

This is basically the situation: Adding anything not catering to casuals is seen as a dire insult, and attack, on the most wholesome of playstyles, and may not be done. Having 4 Savage fights every HALF YEAR is already pushing it.

[NonaLaggia]

Oh wow I did not expect so many comments in that short amount of time.

First of all, I am really thankful for your honesty and that you took some valuable time of yours to post your thoughts and opinion. I read all of them and I will continue reading every single comment in the future.

I agree with every single one of you. There have been always two sides of people in Eorzea, the ones who just enjoy the company of Eorzean and Warriors, on the other hand the ones who strive for competition.

I have to admit, my examples for a "challenging" Eorzea, were oriented unfortunately only on the second half of Eorzea I just mentioned and I have to greatly apologize for that. Of course I meant to involve as many groups of people as possible.
Also I have to admit, that it is always hard to build a world, that can be enjoyed by everyone, because there always will be some kind of disagreement.

But, let me try again.

You have told me, that there are Warriors out there, who like to play the game, because they just want to enjoy their time off from work. Who just want to enjoy the company of friends or family - or just wish to visit the world, to enjoy like it exists , to read stories of the beloved of this world, to fight villains in their own means. We know, that the people of Eorzea, all over the world have goals and milestone for their own. Not everyone has to have a thurst for reaching the biggest milestone that can be achieved, but even the smallest one can be as important as the greatest. Even if it just means to enjoy evenings, calming down from a busy day and to relax.

With the possibility of housing and relaxing events, like treasure maps (of course there is much more that can be added here), the gold saucer and more than I can list here, this kind of relaxation mentioned before, can be reached. But even these people, who may enjoyed the game for more than years, couldn't they just lose interest, if there is nothing easy on blink but challenging if practiced? Does it have to be a Raid, that sounds hard in the ears of people, that scares away everyone who just wants to enjoy?

I just remember the riddle quest from ARR, where you had to think where the next location could be, where the community teamed up to solve the mystery behind it, wasn't this kinda fun? Didn't you enjoy it? Of course people who just wanted it completed were almost giving up, looking up for the solution of every step, but isn't that kind of thing, that we enjoyed the most? The community solving a challenge, a common goal we can pursue? Like I mentioned before, that kind of goal, of milestone can be achieved right now with the Ishgardian Project, but is there more?

[NonaLaggia]

And yes the previous content we had, may it be 2.0 or content until the world beyond, feels easier. An example here is the Crystal Tower for itself. I know that people who visit the world more than months and years, maybe do not wish to queue for something taking more than 40 mins of their lives. But people who have not had that chance, to enjoy that content at the fullest, why should this be taken from them? It is not about "suffering the same pain", it is more about content people want and wish to enjoy.
I convinced a friend of mine, to visit Eorzea with me. It is wonderful to hear his enjoyment of every single dungeon, alliance raid and trial we clear. But he always asks me, if someday he could do this kind of content with a group that is not rushing through this kind of content. Where he can enjoy the content at its fullest. When we did Crystal Tower together, he was confused what he should do, he lost the group more than often out of sight and he tried to understand what was happening.

This should be it for now. I am thankful that you took the time to read.

I invite, again, everyone to join this discussion, to share your opinion and thoughts.
Teach me better if I am wrong. I cannot wait for your comments.

Thank you.

[Mindiori]

I won't beat around the bush. I barely progressed beyond SB because everyone I knew quit at the simplification. Times have changed and like some of you I understand the hardcore are no longer cared about. Devs from ESO across to this game, stress on taking breaks and not taking the game seriously. From a business point sure, that isn't going to change. But is it fun? Is there a sense of achievement from class/job play or general progression? Lol no. On that level the game has been rendered quite pointless to those of us who preferred a little more meat, than calling a 3 button spam fest 'complex'. Its all well and good a vast majority of people enjoying nothing but a relax. But if any of my other real life hobbies from music, across to side study of other more written disciplines were that empty of purpose - I wouldn't bother. Not even during my time off. This for me really does capture the mentality of the modern self gratifying layabout. And no. I was able to maintain a difficult career whilst enjoying deeper gameplay. I feel as if many are out of key on just how challenging things in life are. There is a difference between casual enough for entry - and 90% mindnumbing. The Japanese forums and complaints show that I am not alone on that front either. But we can but wait and see. I'm not so much looking for a debate. Things are over and done with now. Just have to see what feedback results in, especially for abominations like my friends Scholar (which I started to level to see just how damn boring he said its become), when they get around to the next release.